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  • ircjs sends cp437, should it send utf8 instead for better compat?

    From martylake@VERT to All on Mon Dec 6 01:46:01 2021
    Dear All,

    <context>
    As I build my way through self-hosting, I realize that one software package cannot fit all the requirements. So I started hosting auxiliary services around synchronet, and I handle the auth of those services with openldap.

    One of those services is an internal IRC server. I speculate that most of my potential users will be computer-illiterates with little patience to learn stuff (even if my ultimate goal is to teach them all that, while learning most ef it too). So to have some modern chat feeling (remember chatlog, multiple device, same appearance), I have successfuly setup a ZNC bouncer accessuble from the outside, that auths to openldap.

    Feeling great about this little success, in an effort to unify this auth scheme, I tried to switch from the internal synchronet's irc server to an inspircd server.
    </context>

    However, because inspircd is utf8, and irc.js is cp437, I have some encoding issues that I have tried to quickly patch this way:
    * function get_command `line.sock.recvline` has an extra step: `utf8_decode`
    * function send_cmd `sock.send` has an extra step before: `utf8_encode`

    Typing all this twice (the editor crashed in between), I wonder:
    1) why is irc.js sending cp437 and not utf8 ? it seems to me that always sending utf8 would improve compatibility with existing servers there
    2) is replacing synchronet's irc's server a good idea ? it seems to me that having one single way of authentificating per service-type would save me some troubles later, but as I am pretty new to IRC hosting, maybe you have some advices and stories to share related to this ?

    Thanks in advance for your answers and precious knowledge there,
    Best,
    martylake

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ Vertrauen þ Home of Synchronet þ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net
  • From Digital Man@VERT to martylake on Mon Dec 6 13:14:11 2021
    Re: ircjs sends cp437, should it send utf8 instead for better compat?
    By: martylake to All on Mon Dec 06 2021 01:46 am

    Typing all this twice (the editor crashed in between), I wonder:
    1) why is irc.js sending cp437 and not utf8 ? it seems to me that always sending utf8 would improve compatibility with existing servers there
    2) is replacing synchronet's irc's server a good idea ?

    The best place to have this discussion would likely be in #synchronet at irc.synchro.net.
    --
    digital man (rob)

    Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #70:
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    þ Synchronet þ Vertrauen þ Home of Synchronet þ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net
  • From Digital Man@VERT to martylake on Mon Dec 6 22:02:00 2021
    Re: ircjs sends cp437, should it send utf8 instead for better compat?
    By: Digital Man to martylake on Mon Dec 06 2021 01:14 pm

    Re: ircjs sends cp437, should it send utf8 instead for better compat?
    By: martylake to All on Mon Dec 06 2021 01:46 am

    Typing all this twice (the editor crashed in between), I wonder:
    1) why is irc.js sending cp437 and not utf8 ? it seems to me that always sending utf8 would improve compatibility with existing servers there
    2) is replacing synchronet's irc's server a good idea ?

    The best place to have this discussion would likely be in #synchronet at irc.synchro.net.

    BTW, irc.js sends what the user types (plus some extra IRC protocol stuff). Synchronet does not really have good support for UTF-8 input (from the user), so... practically speaking, the types ASCII characters and irc.js sends th ose ASCII characters. All ASCII characters are both valid CP437 and UTF-8 characters. So... I'm not really sure what you're saying.
    --
    digital man (rob)

    Sling Blade quote #5:
    Karl Childers (to father): You ought not killed my little brother...
    Norco, CA WX: 52.2øF, 95.0% humidity, 0 mph SSE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs ---
    þ Synchronet þ Vertrauen þ Home of Synchronet þ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net